19

Lo! the darting bowling orb!

Lo! the brother orbs around! all the clustering suns and planets;
All the dazzling days, all the mystic nights with dreams,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

20

These are of us, they are with us,

All for primal needed work, while the followers there in embryo wait behind,
We to-day's procession heading, we the route for travel clearing,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

21

O you daughters of the west!

O you young and elder daughters! O you mothers and you wives!
Never must you be divided, in our ranks you move united,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

22

Minstrels latent on the prairies!

(Shrouded bards of other lands! you may sleep-you have done your work;) Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp amid us,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

23

Not for delectations sweet;

Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful and the studious;
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame enjoyment,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

24

Do the feasters gluttonous feast?

Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the ground,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

25

Has the night descended?

Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged, nodding on our way? Yet a passing hour I yield you, in your tracks to pause oblivious,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

26

Till with sound of trumpet,

Far, far off the day-break call-hark! how loud and clear I hear it wind;
Swift! to the head of the army!-swift! spring to your places,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

90

First published in "Drum-Taps," 1865.

YEARS OF THE MODERN

Years of the modern! years of the unperform'd!

Your horizon rises-I see it parting away for more august dramas,

I see not America only-I see not only Liberty's nation, but other nations preparing; I see tremendous entrances and exits-I see new combinations—I see the solidarity of races;

I see that force advancing with irresistible power on the world's stage;

(Have the old forces, the old wars, played their parts? are the acts suitable to them closed?)

I see Freedom, completely arm'd, and victorious, and very haughty, with Law on one side, and Peace on the other,

A stupendous Trio, all issuing forth against the idea of caste;

-What historic denouements are these we so rapidly approach?

I see men marching and countermarching by swift millions;

I see the frontiers and boundaries of the old aristocracies broken;

I see the landmarks of European kings removed;

I see this day the People beginning their landmarks, (all others give way;)

-Never were such sharp questions ask'd as this day;

Never was average man, his soul, more energetic, more like a God;

Lo! how he urges and urges, leaving the masses no rest;

His daring foot is on land and sea everywhere--he colonizes the Pacific, the archipelagoes;

With the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, the newspaper, the wholesale engines of

war,

With these, and the world-spreading factories, he interlinks all geography, all lands;
-What whispers are these, O lands, running ahead of you, passing under the seas? 20
Are all nations communing? is there going to be but one heart to the globe?
Is humanity forming, en-masse?-for lo! tyrants tremble, crowns grow dim;
The earth, restive, confronts a new era, perhaps a general divine war;

No one knows what will happen next-such portents fill the days and nights;
Years prophetical! the space ahead as I walk, as I vainly try to pierce it, is full
of phantoms;

Unborn deeds, things soon to be, project their shapes around me;

This incredible rush and heat-this strange extatic fever of dreams, O years!

Your dreams, O year, how they penetrate through me! (I know not whether I sleep or wake!)

The perform'd America and Europe grow dim, retiring in shadow behind me,
The unperform'd, more gigantic than ever, advance, advance upon me.

30

First published in "Drum-Taps," 1865, under title of "Years of the Unperformed."

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the

lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

First published in "Drum-Taps," 1865.

1 See "Specimen Days," Oct. 20, 1863; July 22, 1878; Apr. 5, 1879, and Feb. 10, 1881.

PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S BURIAL HYMN 1

"When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd."

1

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloom'd,

And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd-and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

O ever-returning spring! trinity sure to me you bring;
Lilac blooming perennial, and drooping star in the west,
And thought of him I love.

O powerful, western, fallen star!

2

O shades of night! O moody, tearful night!

O great star disappear'd! O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless! O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud, that will not free my soul!

3

In the door-yard fronting an old farm-house, near the white-wash'd palings,
Stands the lilac bush, tall-growing, with heart-shaped leaves of rich green,
With many a pointed blossom, rising, delicate, with the perfume strong I love,
With every leaf a miracle . . . and from this bush in the dooryard,
With delicate-color'd blossoms, and heart-shaped leaves of rich green,

A sprig, with its flower, I break.

The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements,
Sings by himself a song.

Song of the bleeding throat!

Death's outlet song of life-(for well, dear brother, I know
If thou wast not gifted to sing, thou would'st surely die.)

Amid lanes, and through old woods, (where lately the violets peep'd from the ground, spotting the gray débris ;)

Amid the grass in the fields each side of the lanes-passing the endless grass;

Passing the yellow-spear'd wheat, every grain from its shroud in the dark-brown fields uprising;

Passing the apple-tree blows of white and pink in the orchards;

Carrying a corpse to where it shall rest in the grave,

Night and day journeys a coffin.

6

Coffin that passes through lanes and streets,

30

Through day and night, with the great cloud darkening the land,

With the pomp of the inloop'd flags, with the cities draped in black,

With the show of the States themselves, as of crape-veil'd women, standing,

1 See passages on Lincoln in "Specimen Days" for Aug. 12, 1863; Mar. 4, 1865; Apr. 16, 1865.

With processions long and winding, and the flambeaus of the night,

With the countless torches lit-with the silent sea of faces, and the unbared heads, With the waiting depot, the arriving coffin, and the sombre faces,

With dirges through the night, with the thousand voices rising strong and solemn; 40 With all the mournful voices of the dirges, pour'd around the coffin,

The dim-lit churches and the shuddering organs-Where amid these you journey, With the tolling, tolling bells' perpetual clang;

Here! coffin that slowly passes,

I give you my sprig of lilac.

(Nor for you, for one, alone;

7

Blossoms and branches green to coffins all I bring:

For fresh as the morning-thus would I carol a song for you, O sane and sacred death.

Now I know what you must have meant, as a month since we walk'd,

As we walk'd up and down in the dark blue so mystic,

As we walk'd in silence the transparent shadowy night,

As I saw you had something to tell, as you bent to me night after night,

50

As you droop'd from the sky low down, as if to my side, (while the other stars all look'd on;)

60

As we wander'd together the solemn night, (for something, I know not what, kept me from sleep ;)

As the night advanced, and I saw on the rim of the west, ere you went, how full you were of woe;

As I stood on the rising ground in the breeze, in the cold transparent night,

As I watch'd where you pass'd and was lost in the netherward black of the night, As my soul, in its trouble, dissatisfied, sank, as where you, sad orb,

Concluded, dropt in the night, and was gone.

Sing on, there in the swamp!

9

O singer bashful and tender! I hear your notes-I hear your call;

I hear-I come presently—I understand you;

But a moment I linger-for the lustrous star has detain'd me;
The star, my departing comrade, holds and detains me.

10

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?

And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone?

And what shall my perfume be, for the grave of him I love?

Sea-winds, blown from east and west.

70

Blown from the eastern sea, and blown from the western sea, till there on the prairies meeting:

These, and with these, and the breath of my chant,

I perfume the grave of him I love.

11

O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?

And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?

Pictures of growing spring, and farms, and homes,

Во

With the Fourth-month eve at sundown, and the gray smoke lucid and bright, With floods of the yellow gold of the gorgeous, indolent, sinking sun, burning, expanding the air;

With the fresh sweet herbage under foot, and the pale green leaves of the trees prolific;

In the distance the flowing glaze, the breast of the river, with a wind-dapple here and there;

With ranging hills on the banks, with many a line against the sky, and shadows; And the city at hand, with dwellings so dense, and stacks of chimneys,

And all the scenes of life, and the workshops, and the workmen homeward returning.

Lo! body and soul! this land!

12

90

Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and the sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land-the South and the North in the light-Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri,

And ever the far-spreading prairies, cover'd with grass and corn.

Lo! the most excellent sun, so calm and haughty;

The violet and purple morn, with just-felt breezes;

The gentle, soft-born, measureless light;

The miracle, spreading, bathing all the fulfill'd noon;

The coming eve, delicious-the welcome night, and the stars,
Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

Sing on! sing on, you gray-brown bird!

13

Sing from the swamps, the recesses-pour your chant from the bushes;
Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines.

Sing on, dearest brother-warble your reedy song;
Loud human song, with voice of uttermost woe.

O liquid, and free, and tender!

O wild and loose to my soul! O wondrous singer!

You only I hear. . . yet the star holds me, (but will soon depart;)

Yet the lilac, with mastering odor, holds me.

100

14

Now while I sat in the day, and look'd forth,

In the close of the day, with its light, and the fields of spring, and the farmer preparing his crops,

110

In the large unconscious scenery of my land, with its lakes and forests,
In the heavenly aerial beauty, (after the perturb'd winds, and the storms;)
Under the arching heavens of the afternoon swift passing, and the voices of chil-

dren and women,

The many-moving sea-tides,—and I saw the ships how they sail'd,

And the summer approaching with richness, and the fields all busy with labor. And the infinite separate houses, how they all went on, each with its meals and minutia of daily usages;